UNRULY AND VIOLENT SON

Published By The Daily Star on 9th July, 2011 (Link Here)

This week Your Advocate is Barrister Omar Khan Joy, Advocate, Supreme Court of Bangladesh. He is the head of the chambers of a renowned law firm, namely, ‘Legal Counsel’, which has expertise mainly in commercial law, corporate law, family law, employment and labor law, land law, banking law, constitutional law, criminal law, IPR and in conducting litigations before courts of different hierarchies. Our civil and criminal law experts from reputed law chambers will provide the legal summary advice.

Query
I use to work in Australia and due to some family crisis I had to come back to Dhaka. The problem occurred with my younger brother (25 years) whom used to study in Australia but didn’t complete his studies. He was never serious with his career and after returning to Dhaka he started taking drugs, involved with bad company and demanding unnecessary money from my parents. This situation led to an uncontrollable violence against my family. There was an incident when he took a kitchen knife and stabbed on his left hand and threatened my family to do further violence.

He used to have some physical problem and we took him to Bombay for treatment. Even after that my brother being ungrateful, continued with his unwanted behaviour. My dada don’t have any business income he runs his family with rental income and had some saving. But to maintain my brother’s expenses we started facing financial crisis. Due to my father’s poor health condition, I could not go back and join my work and as a result lost my job in Australia.

Now my parent wants to live in peace with out any family violence and want my brother to leave the house for their safety. In this situation what we can do.

Muhammad Imtiaz
Banani, Dhaka.

Response
Dear reader, thank you very much for your query. I fully understand the pain, suffering and agony of your family members and express my deepest and genuine compassion. Honestly speaking, since it is a matter regarding your own younger brother, the matter can be best resolved through the members of the family as opposed to by legal intervention. Consequently, I would like to advice that you continue your effort to sit with him and try to make him understand what is good and what is bad for him and for the family as a whole. In case he does not sit with you or your parents, you can decide to involve other senior members of your extended family or a close family friend. In addition, you can seek the help of some of his close friends to counsel him. You may tell him that in case he does not rectify his behavour and completely give up his addiction to drugs, you may have no other option but to involve the police. Furthermore, he may be caught by the police anyway in any given day. This will only destroy his bright future bring no good to anyone.

In case all your efforts fail, you may lodge a general diary (GD) or even a complaint to the concerned police station stating the facts of his violent behavour and his addiction to drugs. However, please note that even if you only lodge a GD and not a complaint, it is very likely that the police with start a case on their own volition against him as he has committed crimes by violating several provisions of the Penal Code. In case if a case starts, the police may arrest him and if the crimes are proved in the court, which are very likely in the instant scenario, he will have to face imprisonment. For this reason, you should consider a legal solution to the problem only as a last resort, when all the other sincere efforts fail.

Through this advice, I would also like to warn the other parents to learn lesson from your unhappy and most unwanted situation. All the parents must take good and proper care of their children and must know what their children are doing and with whom they are mixing with. The matters can be very well handled, if the same come to the knowledge of the parents at an early stage. In our society the young children are particularly vulnerable and can easily get involved with bad company and destroy their lives bringing endless sufferings and disgrace to their family. Parental supervision shall continue even after when the child attains majority and at least till the age when the parents can reasonably rely on the child’s own judgment. Indeed prevention is better than cure, isn’t it?

For detailed query contact: [email protected].